Marysville 16-year-old charged in drive-by shooting

Published 1:30 am Monday, August 15, 2016

EVERETT — A few months ago a Marysville detective described how his index finger was on the trigger of his service weapon as a 16-year-old reached for a stolen gun.

“I pointed my gun at (the teen) and started to slowly pull back on the trigger yelling, ‘Stop,’” the detective wrote.

The Marysville boy thought better of grabbing the gun and instead ran for home. The detective “released the tension” from his trigger finger and ran after the teen.

Anthony Mangan was arrested a short time later. The teen told police he was reaching for his hat, not the gun. Police found a .40-caliber Sig Sauer handgun lying in the middle of the road where the boy had tripped. There were eight rounds in the magazine. The gun was reported stolen out of Mukilteo.

Mangan was convicted in juvenile court of illegal gun possession in March. It was his fourth felony conviction in less than a year.

Mangan is looking at another gun charge, and this time the case is being prosecuted in adult court. Mangan is accused of shooting up a north Marysville house earlier this month. Detectives say it’s Mangan’s second drive-by shooting in 18 months.

Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Halley Hupp charged Mangan last week with first-degree assault with a firearm for the Aug. 3 shooting.

Witnesses said Mangan had argued with a man earlier in the day at the 7-Eleven on Shoultes Road. The man reportedly told police that Mangan had broken into his house and they stopped talking after the incident.

That night Mangan allegedly fired multiple shots at the man’s house. Four people were home at the time of the gunfire, Hupp wrote. No one was hurt.

A video surveillance camera from a nearby house recorded the shooting.

“It showed the vehicle driving southbound with its lights off, and then caught muzzle flashes coming from the vehicle,” Hupp wrote in court papers.

Police located the car outside the defendant’s house. The driver was stopped, and he told police Mangan would kill him if he talked. He admitted to being behind the wheel when Mangan fired at the Marysville house, Hupp wrote.

He said Mangan removed the spent casings from the backseat of the car and tossed them in some bushes when they spotted police. Officers later found the shells near Mangan’s house.

Mangan allegedly said, “(Expletive) it! I’ll take the charge,” Hupp wrote.

The 16-year-old remains jailed on $250,000 bail.

In March, Mangan pleaded guilty to unlawful gun possession for the incident involving Marysville police. A neighbor had called 911 when he spotted Mangan holding a gun outside his house. Dispatchers were told that the teen had put the gun in his waistband.

Officers found him, but Mangan ignored commands to keep his hands away from his waist. He ran from the officers. The gun fell to the pavement as Mangan tripped and he was reaching for the gun as a detective approached.

Mangan later told police he was reaching for drugs, not the gun in his waistband. In March, he was sentenced to up to nine months in juvenile detention.

Prosecutors last year reduced a drive-by shooting charge to reckless endangerment and a juvenile in possession of a firearm for a Feb. 23, 2015 incident. Mangan was accused of shooting up a different Marysville house. No one was hurt in that incident. Police were told Mangan opened fire after he was confronted about slashing tires on cars parked outside the house.

He was sentenced to 10 days in juvenile detention. A few months later he was in trouble again for a burglary and drugs.

One of the victims was reluctant to cooperate, writing, “Man, if I write a statement about these guys, they are shooters, man. They will come to my house and shoot it up,” according to court papers.

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.